Newry News and Irish Fun
John McCullagh 
1947 was the coldest winter in living memory, the year of the big snow. It fell and lasted for weeks. Indeed, it was the year of birth of Newry Journal’s editor and you’d know by the look of him that first cold winter stunted his growth!!
Watches were expensive and not in vogue with ordinary people in those days. In any case, we didn’t need them! There were many ways to tell the time; there were the trains, the church clock and the mill horns, for example.
My Uncle Raymond was a jack-of-all-trades. He could be called upon by his brothers and sisters to paint, paper, clear drains, in fact anything that needed to be done about the house he was their man. For years we believed him when he said that he was teaching the pups to swim whenever our bitch Toby gave birth to a litter.
That was the question asked by our bus driver as we were about to set off from the AOH Club in Newry to go on one of our early trips to
Who better to show one the architectural and archaeological treasures of the Hilltown area than local Green Party councillor Ciaran Mussen? I had the quick tour but am promised the whole thing in the near future. Ciaran hopes to set up a local walking group and I’m optimistic he will accept a Nyuck interloper too!
The gravestone pictured below has the Magennis coat-of-arms and other inscriptions carved (though now badly-weathered) upon it. The seventeenth century repression following the 1641 insurrection saw the suppression of the branch of the locally ruling Magennis sept and the confiscation of lands. Some Magennisses made their peace with the English in order to retain some possessions and a position of influence.
It was never anything but a short-term policy on the part of the occupiers and by the end of the century less than 10% of all Irish land was in Irish hands.
‘A Blood Red Autumn: Thomas Russell and the Irish Rising of 1803’ by Francis P Gallagher is designed to shed more light on a subject which till now has received little historical research. The book is available locally at Easons and Waterstones.
This jazz 4 piece plays at P J O’Hares in Carlingford every Sunday afternoon until 6.30. Great meeting place too. The ladies are Margaret, sister of Tony Feehan, lead singer and my friend of old, Maureen Quinn.
The pan was used extensively at our house when we were young.
There were ten children, two parents and one granny to be catered for and my mother was the chief cook. The only time the pan was not used was when we had a roast or stew for dinner but even so the pan came out on Monday and the remains of the Sunday roast was cut into slices and fried on the pan along with the remains of the vegetables.